Q14 - Some of the world's most beautiful cats are Persian ca

[XEVIAN_ZONG]

Can someone kindly explain to me why E) is the correct answer? Thanks!

[a3friedm]

It might help to look at it in terms of a conditional syllogism.

(1) MB (some) PC
(2) PC → Pompous
(3) Pompous → Irritating
______________
Some of the conclusions we can make using the transitive property

PC → Irritating
Contrapositive
(-)Irritating → (-)PC

Quantitative
MB (some) Pompous
MB (some) Irritating

Answer choices:

(A) valid inference of premise (1) & (2)

(B) some statements are reversible, so this is valid

(C) Contrapositive of premise (2) & (3)

(D) inference from premise (1) & (2)

(E) Incorrect Reversal. Notice that we can have PC in our conclusion but we would need to use the contrapositive of statements (2) &/or (3). In both cases the sufficient condition would be not Irritating or not Pompous. The answer choice however gives us the unnegated form of irritating and pompous.

Incidently the only inferences we can make from from unnegated irritating are
1) Some irritating cats are persian cats
2) Some irritating cats are the most beautiful

Also some things to pay attention to about answer choice (E) is that it switches from most beautiful to beautiful which is category of cats we dont know about. Some statements dont have a limit, so they have the potential of being all statements. It is possible that all of the most beautiful cats are persian cats.

Hope this helped